Only a few general principles are provided as a foundation for an effective program. However, what is new is the emphasis on human groups as a basis for organizing a single social studies discipline. Some questions are suggested concerning what should be investigated about groups, and what the students need to understand. 1) What causes human groups to form, to change, to disintegrate? 2) What holds groups together--ideas, beliefs, values? 3) How are these ideas expressed in groups --art, artifacts, rituals, myths? 4) How is group control acquired, exercised, maintained, or lost? 5) What is acceptable behavior within the group? 6) Who interacts with whom, why, and how? 7) How is the group affected by other groups or its environment? 8) What creates conflict and how is it resolved? These are questions equally useful in the study of nations or neighborhoods, culture, or classroom cliques. Questions such as these require the student to use all the cognitive processes and lead him to discover powerful concepts. Critical thinking skills lead to understanding and creative generalizations about human behavior: observation, classification, measurement, inference, hypotheses making and verification, prediction, definition, interpretation, and the use of relationships. The objective, rational study of values and value differences are the essential ground for the content and process with first hand observation of social action as the most powerful learning tool. (Author/SBE)